Month: February 2011

In the world which we live in, everything has a value. From our jobs, to our cars, to our homes, all the items we possess have an intrinsic value attached to them. What makes one item have a greater value than the other is a direct reflection of our worldview. This would also include our faith. We as believers have been taught that God and the things of God are considered holy. If we truly subscribe to this, we would then have the understand that the world and everything in it would be classified as holy, since God created everything. Subsequently, we have allowed the world to “compartmentalize” our faith. Therefore we don’t think as God would – that our faith is integrated into our living, but rather only lived out on separate occasions – say, Sunday Morning at 11:00am?

That being said, how does the Church in America – particularly its leadership, view government? Do they as well as ourselves view it as holy, since God created government according to Romans 13:1-2? Or does the Church in America view government as a periphery or a common thing? – something that we pay attention to “when we have time”? Since we are in the business of “saving souls”, we are being taught by church leadership that in most, but not all cases, the activities in government is of little or no concern to us, since we have a “higher calling”. As I have stated in previous posts, with the exception of the Judges, every governmental authority was a dictatorship. From Pharaoh in the Old Testament to King Agrippa in the New Testament and everyone in between – which would include David and Solomon. Since this is true, how do you reconcile your theology of promoting passivity in a Constitutional Republic when nearly all the Biblical characters and Church fathers never experience the freedoms we enjoy and take for granted today? The persecution of the Church of America is not coming so much at the hand of the devil, but rather due to the culmination of our own foolish choices.

We are passing the crossroads and are approaching the tipping point – commonly known as the point of no return. A point where we could not go back, even if we wanted to. However, it’s not too late. God has not placed America in the balance – yet. From my viewpoint, a call for a solemn assembly, as well as a call to prayer and repentance is needed. With the leaders first to repent to God and to each other, then to the people. Afterward, it is their duty to lead us to His throne in repentance and quantify it with some action here on the Earth.

If the world would recognize God as holy, it has to come from us first. Not only in our speech, and in our prayer; But in our living and our giving as well. This would also include our boldness to tell the truth, that God created the world and we will not succumb to any type of coercion or outright bullying to compromise what God calls holy and thereby rendering it as common.

It has been 90 days since our national election in November. What has happened so far? Those on the left have awaken from their political drunken stupor to find out that they no longer have a monopoly over the American people. While the country has been moving in the right direction – politically speaking, the silence of the Church in America is still eerily deafening.

Even after all the careless (reckless?) mistakes the Church in America has made over the last 2+years – from electing a president that can not – or will not prove his legitimacy, to the failure of allowing their people to be educated that we, not the politicians are the gatekeepers of our freedom. We have been grossly negligent in the preserving the freedoms that God has entrusted to us. Don’t believe me? It was George Washington that said, “It is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible”. How many people do you know that the Bible would classify as “heathen” would care about God orthe Bible – much less be subjected to either one of them? That being said, whose responsibility is it to put in godly leadership in government?

While viewing some of the videos available from the CPAC conference this year, I noticed the same thread as I did last year. You will find a lot of speakers who can speak well, but lack the wisdom to recognize that this country does not have so much of a lack of money problem as we do a lack of God problem. We in America have made the political process the focal point of our country, instead of God. When God said in the Ten Commandments – the same ones that were declared by the U.S. Supreme Court unconstitutional in 1980: Do not murder; Do not steal; Do not lie (bear false witness); Do not covet; When He said “You shall have no other gods before Me”. He meant exactly that. This is why we as a nation are in moral, political, and economic chaos. We have worshiped an ideology, instead of a King. We have bowed our knee at the altar of conservatism instead of at the foot of the cross.

Do we honestly believe that righteousness – right standing with God, will come from those whom God calls wicked? Of course not. Then the only logical place if can come from is from those whom God considers righteous. Righteous leadership in America does not come from His choosing. It comes from ours. Remember, as powerful as the Holy Spirit is, as wise as He is, as loving and kind as He is, He did not push the button, pulled the lever, or punched the card to vote – You did that. Therefore the candidate that is in office is not because of His choice, but of yours. I have encountered many people who have stated, “God is in control”. While ultimately this is true, He does not control you choices. Look at Jonah. He could have easily became part of the great fish’s digestive tract. Yet he chose instead to repent to God and go preach in Nineveh. What happened? Repentance and revival broke out in Nineveh. In I Samuel 8:5, the men of the city chose to go to Samuel and asked for a king so they could be ruled like the other nations. This choice was not God’s best but God honored that choice also and whom did the men get? Saul.

Here’s a question I have for the Church in America: If to know what is right and to do wrong anyway is sin, and if righteousness exalts a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people (see Proverbs 14:34), How can we allow the wicked to govern our country and then ask God to bless it (God Bless America)? The “underground” churches in China, India, Russia, and the Middle East lack one thing that we have – freedom. What will we tell God if we lose this gift and we become like the other nations?

As I look at current events such as the uprising in Egypt and now the threat of one in Zimbabwe, I reflect on America being known as the “Great Experiment”. Why would that phrase be coined about this place? One reason is that this country wasn’t created out of a political necessity, but a religious one. A second is the ability for the populace to govern themselves that in world history up until that time has never been heard of, much less tried before. A third would be economic; Meaning that the opportunities to be successful was the same, regardless of how much capital you started with at the onset. As I believe the second and third reasons are “foundational stones” for America’s greatness, however it is the ability to pursue God as Scripture would call us to do that is the cornerstone of our nation.

That being said why is it that our freedoms are being “drained” from the “body” we know as America? Several reasons come to mind:

We as a nation have forgotten our history.

We as a nation have taken our freedoms for granted.

We as a nation have believed that we can defy “economic gravity” – that we can spend our way into prosperity.

We as a nation are focused on self-gratification as well as self-glorification.

We as a nation have relegated God to the periphery instead of being the centerpiece of our nation.

It is in this last reason this post will focus on. We the Church in America have misconstrued God’s restraint for license. By this, I mean we have abandoned our mandate to steward the freedoms He has given us, and instead we have focused on the ability to get wealth that He gave us. If you are hesitant to agree with me, listen closely to what comes out of your church on Sunday morning. Is it mostly about freedom or finances? Is it about Church government or God government? Where is the focus of accountability – your “Prayer Partner” whose freedom in God you can encourage or the politician who can curtail yourfreedom?

Nature abhors a vacuum. This is true in the physical, spiritual, economic, and yes – the political world as well. The fact that we have abandoned our “posts” politically, means that someone could step in who maybe be hostile to our Biblical worldview and that they would be in a position to remove all vestiges of it from the public and political arena. Yet this person – who we chose on Election Day, is the one we are being told in our churches to pray for? Sounds far-fetched? Sounds unreasonable? Look no further than Barack Obama. He has a history in the Illinois State Senate as well as the United States Senate to completely undermine the Biblical worldview. From voting for taxpayer-funded abortions to voting in favor of the Born Alive Act – Where doctors of botched abortions are required not to aid a baby that was born alive. This is the one we as a nation chose to put into the office of the President. This is the one we are being told in our churches that we are required to pray for?

The time has come for the Church in America to do an “uprising” of its own. It is time for us to cast off the restraint of unsound Biblical doctrine and embrace the Scripture for what it says and what He means. If the “mad scientists” of the spiritual and political worlds are not shown the door soon, the body known as America will be DOA and its heart – the Church will cease to function.

Shall you aid the “body” in its will to live? Only you – not your Pastor or Priest can make that decision.